


Fair Trade

by Taste_of_Suburbia



Series: an unquiet mind [7]
Category: From Paris with Love (2010)
Genre: 24 hours to live, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Angst, Blood Loss, Caring Wax, Cursed Reece, Determined Wax, Friendship, Horror, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Partners to Lovers, Pining, Romance, Self-Harm, Self-Sacrifice, Sick Reece, Side Effects, Teasing, Trope Bingo Round 12, Witch Curses, Witches, h/c_bingo, true love saves the day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 17:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19338919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_of_Suburbia/pseuds/Taste_of_Suburbia
Summary: Wax figured dead witches were a hell of a lot better than living, breathing, meddling,cursingones.After a witch curses Reece, Wax realizes just how far he’ll go to save him.





	Fair Trade

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill on my Trope Bingo [card](https://immolate-the-silence.dreamwidth.org/30129.html) for Twenty-Four Hours to Live. 
> 
> This is also a fill on my h/c_bingo [card](https://immolate-the-silence.dreamwidth.org/34933.html) for the square Side Effects, aka the side effects/consequences of pissing off witches and the side effects of curses. 
> 
> **Series:** An Unquiet Mind
> 
> This is set in the same Monsters/Hunters world that my other From Paris With Love fics are set in (‘The Skin Job’, ‘Hang Tight’, ‘murky like my heart,’ ‘we’re higher than our silence and deeper than our violence’, ‘feel me in the saturation when the sun burns out’ and ‘Her Portrait in Blistered Gold’). I have now, _finally,_ conveniently placed them in the above series. 
> 
> _Background:_ Essentially, Reece and Wax work for a secret government agency that hunts down all manner of monsters who prey on humans. They are both the investigators and the hunters, the only ones who have the skill-set to find out what they’re hunting and then kill it. Reece, like in the film, is more by the books and doesn’t fool around. While Wax, also like in the film, figures you might as well have a little fun while you’re discovering all manner of nasty things. 
> 
> **Soundtrack:** Lyrics are from Lifehouse’s ‘Hanging By a Moment.’

 

_~I’m living for the only thing I know_

_I’m running and not quite sure where to go_

_And I don’t know what I’m diving into_

_Just hanging by a moment here with you~_

* * *

 

Curses weren’t something Charlie Wax was used to dealing with.

He had managed to track another witch down, elusive and devious assholes they were, but what should have been a relatively simple task had been anything but. He’d wasted four hours on the finding alone, another four trekking off to the middle of fucking nowhere only to realize all his hard, desperate work had led to a dead end, and by the time they’d circled back around and Wax had spared some time for Reece, ten hours had too quickly and far too easily gone by.

A second trail even more winding than the first had attributed to Wax’s final, nearly unshakable hope, because Reece was fading far too quickly for Wax to drag him around much longer.

He was twenty minutes through a second much-needed break for Reece now. Before, he’d been trying to stave off an increasing heat that had multiplied into blood-boiling fever. Now, Reece was suffering through cold that chilled even Wax’s tired old bones.

Wax dunked a rag into a paper cup of boiling water he’d just acquired from a vendor, tossing the tea bag into the nearest cup holder. In a gesture of defeat, Reece allowed him to dab at his face gently, trying to warm him. He blinked slowly, studying Wax, leaning just into his touch enough that Wax had to bite back a smile of victory. He ran the cloth over Reece’s hands next, spending long moments on each finger, telling himself the blue tinge to them was just a figment of his imagination, then bathing his palms and wrists before moving to his neck.

He smirked when Reece moaned, grateful for the distraction. “If it feels that good, baby, I won’t stop.” God, how he loved to tease Reece; it was just so  _easy._

Far from choking on a breath or rolling his eyes, Reece settled on a somewhat exasperated stare instead. “Wax…,” he chastised, but his slightly embarrassed expression told Wax otherwise.

Wax relented, moving back to Reece’s cheek momentarily before pulling back altogether. He went through the motions of squeezing the cloth out onto concrete before he settled on his partner again, first peeking up at him from the corner of his eye, unable to stop running with the moment he’d just created after all. “Just wait ‘till I finally get you in bed, Reece cup.”

Reece  _did_ roll his eyes this time. “Only  _you_ could think about sex at a time like this.”

Wax grinned, speaking before thinking as he always did. “No time like the present.” His partner actually appeared even more uncomfortable than he had moments before, so Wax _officially_ backed off. “Easy, pretty boy. As much as I think it might warm you up, I’m not keen on sticking my dick into my sick partner.” _My sick and_ dying _partner._

_Don’t think about that._

“Thanks for reminding me of that.”

Wax finally shifted, openly staring up at Reece now. “Why? Your pale ass is still pretty damn cute right now.”  _And fuckable._ “And sexy,” Wax added, for good measure. He’d always made it a point not to lie to Reece and this was no exception. This moment among the handful that they  _might_ have left was  _especially_ no exception. 

Reece startled enough to try to sit up, only to flop right back down in exhausted, resigned defeat. “Wait… You think I’m attractive?”

His partner, as always, desperate for the truth, desperate for any scrap Wax would throw his way: a tidbit of information, a compliment, a tipoff and he  _imagined_ that Wax didn’t know. Yeah, Wax had Reece right where he wanted him. For now. Still, Reece  _had_ blatantly asked and sure, Wax could skirt around the issue but did he really want to? _Hell_ fucking no. This was his chance to rile Reece up a little, but only because Reece wouldn’t believe him and would agonize over whether Wax was really playing him or just  _appearing_ to be playing with him. It’d take a whole lot more to get through that goddamn thick skull of his, stubborn kid he could be. “Hell yeah, I think you’re attractive. What, ya think I’m  _blind_ ? I’d have to be blind, deaf and pretty fucking dumb not to want to get into your pants.”

Reece looked like he was somewhere between turned on and revolted, if that made any sort of sense at all. Wax figured the halfway point was really only Reece’s belief that he  _should_ be at least marginally disgusted, ‘cause he’d caught Reece looking at him a handful of times with nothing short of shameful longing. It was kind of cute, actually. He’d never say it for fear of pushing Reece too far, not that he couldn’t handle himself, just that Wax would never willingly be  _that_ cruel. “It would ruin it all, don’t you think? I mean, we’re  _partners_ , Wax, are we  _really_ supposed to be messing around?”

_Messing around, huh?_ Just  _messing around?_

As always, Reece was asking all the wrong questions. Wax wasn’t about to correct him; they still had  _some_ time yet. 

Instead, Wax just gazed at Reece, soft, unwavering, expectant, wanting him to understand in that one look all the things he wanted to tell him. Reece never would get it, always so preoccupied and so much in a rush to get to the next moment, the next  _result_ , but one day Wax  _would_ make him understand. 

One day Reece would stop to smell the goddamn roses and he  _would_ understand.

* * *

 

Reece was pale, hell,  _gaunt_ , with eyes so bloodshot it was like he hadn’t slept in days, he hadn’t, given the hunt that had led to this curse had consumed all their energies. His breaths were so heavy and disjointed it was like he couldn’t pull in oxygen properly, courtesy of the curse that was nothing less than a parasite inside him. It wreaked more and more suffering on Reece as the one-thousand, four hundred and forty minutes dwindled down to an inevitable zero, and it put enough strain on his heart to make his suffering nearly intolerable to Wax. At every opportunity Wax would push for words, for physical contact, for  _anything_ , and at every opportunity Reece would push Wax away as if he were pushing death away itself. 

Except for this one time.

Whether it was because he was simply too exhausted, too whittled down to duller edges by the pain, too depleted of energy for the strength he needed to push Wax away as twenty-four hours had dwindled down to eighteen and then down to thirteen and now to nine, it didn’t matter other than Wax’s own boosted sense of self-worth as Reece allowed him to wrap a second, heavier blanket around him, hands on frigid shoulders holding his partner upright as he started to list to the side.

“Reece?” Reece’s eyelashes started fluttering, eyes rolling up as if someone was possessing him but Wax knew better. Other than the sickness lying dormant inside him, waiting until Reece had nothing left in him to hold it at bay, to prevent it from devouring him from the inside out, the pain oozing out of his partner’s every limb as they clenched and shook told Wax that this was nothing more than Reece’s body giving into inevitable unconsciousness.

Although… Wax didn’t know if he’d be able to get Reece to wake up again for the eight hours and forty-eight minutes he had left to save his partner.

“Reece! Come on, pard.” He slapped Reece’s cheek and Reece froze before pulling in a shuddering breath, jolting out of whatever dream or nightmare he had nearly succumbed to.

The fact that Reece had almost drifted off ten minutes ago did nothing to put Wax’s mind at ease.

Wax released him, let him settle back against the front tire of their ride, watched as shaking hands pulled blankets tighter around him. Pain dimmed eyes lifted to meet his, but they were still bright with awareness and  _life_ . “Wax?” A breath that was more labored than it should have been followed. “It happened again, didn’t it?”

The infinitely more coherent of the two eyed their surroundings again and then, satisfied, slipped the last dregs of the water bottle into Reece’s hand. “Just don’t fall asleep, okay?” He couldn’t stop his voice from trembling at the edges, not when he was scarcely closer to helping Reece than he’d been ten hours ago. “I don’t care what you or I have to do, but we’ve got eight good hours left and then some and you’ve  _got_ to stay awake.”

Reece wiped his chin clean of spilled water with his wrist. “I’ll try. It’s not like I want to be unconscious for the last hours of my life.”

Wax fought hard to tamper down his anger; it wouldn’t do to take it out on Reece. As furious as he was at Reece for even imagining for a  _second_ that Wax wouldn’t get them through this, he was even more upset that Reece, ever the practical one, ever the one fighting so hard against Wax’s explicit instructions, couldn’t even let that part of him go for just this  _once._

Whatever reasons Wax had had for not leaving Reece back in their apartment, resting in a bed instead of on cold, hard concrete, which he probably needed more than anything at this point, he didn’t know. Except that leaving Reece unprotected - even for an hour or two - had been unthinkable. The witch who’d placed this curse on his partner likely wouldn’t be back, since her cruel joke on Reece probably didn’t consist of being physically there to watch him slowly wither away and die, but Wax still wasn’t willing to risk it, even if using Reece as bait in that unlikely scenario had occurred to him for half a second.

No, the bitch was probably still watching Reece in her own way, safely far away from Wax’s wrath, spying on them through some fucked up, witchy means. Witches were voyeurs through and through and Wax had learned from experience that they didn’t physically need to be there to watch. They could be thousands of miles away and still be tuned into whatever their victims were doing. Wax needed to be careful; except there was no time left to be anything but a desperate motherfucker who’d kill everything and sacrifice anything to get this sickness feeding on Reece out of him, even if it meant selling his own soul to do it.

_Enough of this_ , he berated himself.  _Time to move._

He pointed up at the sixth floor of an eighth story building, though it needn’t have mattered; it wasn’t like Reece could follow his line of motion, having put all his remaining energy into staying awake even while his eyelids grew heavier and heavier.

Wax put a hand on his shoulder and shook him, gently. The strain on Reece’s heart was already great enough without Wax startling or jolting him any more than was absolutely necessary. “We’re going up there, Reece. There’s a witch that’s going to tell us how to undo this curse and if she doesn’t, well…”  _Don’t think about that._ “Well, she’s damn well going to. So if I have to carry you up six flights of stairs to put this to bed, then I’ll do it.”

Of course, it wasn’t really a matter of _if_ . Reece’s sense of balance had given up on him three hours ago, his ability to walk had been shot a mere two hours after that. Wax  _would_ be carrying his partner or they’d be going nowhere because he sure as hell wasn’t leaving him down here. 

Reece gave him the go ahead with an irritated mumble of “Fine” and Wax wrapped arms around him that hadn’t been allowed before, scooping him up carefully and with the least amount of movement possible.

Wax was too old, really, to carry someone up six grueling flights of stairs.

But whenever Reece was around, he always felt  _invincible._

* * *

 

Threatening a witch at gunpoint had  _definitely_ been on his to-do list today. 

Granted, this wasn’t the same witch that had cursed Reece after their last case had forced his partner to kill her sister, but Wax figured dead witches were a hell of a lot better than living, breathing, meddling,  _cursing_ ones. 

He hadn’t dealt with witches much, as they preferred to keep to themselves and even  _mostly_ keep out of trouble, but the few Wax  _had_ come across were evil incarnate. They were more powerful beings than those he and Reece usually hunted, compared with vamps and succubi and mermaids, who were creatures that tended to have just one goal, the need to  _feed_ , mindless, thoughtless monsters they were. Witches, on the other hand, tended to have the wildest, most unexpected and hardest to decipher desires imaginable. Wax sometimes wondered if they were so dangerous and powerful and enigmatic because they were more  _human_ than anything else out there they hunted. 

Either way, there  _would_ be a dead witch lying at his feet before the day was done. Or several, if he got lucky. 

“Nice fucking afternoon, ain’t it?” He offered by way of greeting, motioning the witch to stand before the window with Mrs. Jones. Reece was still right where he’d put him, splayed out on a horrid floral couch and peering up at Wax with a warning he dared not speak. “My partner here’s been cursed and it’s your lucky day because  _you’re_ going to fix it.”

This witch looked  _fairly_ harmless, more like a helpless senior citizen than an actual witch; then again,  _a lot_ of them did. 

She didn’t fight back either, despite the lack of fear in her eyes and her careful surveillance of Reece as she no doubt realized how truly vulnerable and screwed he was. The not having to tie her up and torture some sense into her was a plus, until she started  _talking._ “I can’t undo another witch’s curse. It goes against our very nature and it is  _forbidden._ Even if I did have a way to do it, there would be far-reaching consequences for  _anyone_ involved.”

The not having to torture her part he’d just mentioned? Yeah, well, looked like that was gonna be thrown out the window.

He pointed Mrs. Jones at her leg but she inched away, closer to Reece, surveying him from the back of the couch. Wax vowed to put a bullet smack dab in the center of her forehead if she made any move to touch him, but he cautioned himself on that, knowing he couldn’t afford to waste anymore time tracking down another witch given how apparently difficult they were to find. But she didn’t touch Reece, only made Wax more uncomfortable by how intently she examined him. “How far along?”

“‘Scuse me?”

“Twenty hours?”

_Twenty? Fuck no. Does Reece really look that bad off?_ His gaze flickered briefly down to his trembling partner, fever bathing his forehead in sweat again, face chalk white and hands gripping the cushions beneath him, clenching and releasing but always shaking, barely paying attention to anything around him, let alone that Wax was watching him in pity and just barely controlled panic.  _Yep, he really does look that bad off._ “No. Nearly sixteen now.”  _Why the fuck did it matter anyway?_

“Good then. We still have time.”

Finally done with his partner, the witch moved over to her small kitchen, Wax watching every move she made as he took her previous place at the back of the couch, standing protectively over Reece. He didn’t really want to think about what her response would have been if Wax  _had_ brought Reece to her twenty hours after the curse had been inflicted on him. He didn’t really want to think about Reece either, about everything he wanted to say and do but like an  _idiot_ had always put off. He couldn’t do anything for Reece now except get on with it and break this curse and even so he had to steel himself, lowering the gun only slightly. “Time for what, old lady? And keep your hands where I can see them!”

She obeyed, though the momentary glance she shot him was more murderous than irritated. “I can’t undo any curse that a witch has placed on a human. All I can do is help you break it.”

_Wait a goddamn…_ “Isn’t that the same goddamn thing?”

“No.” There were bottles at her reach now, some she poured into others, mixing, tasting, carefully measuring, all of which ended up in a small wooden bowl when she was finished. Only then did she turn her attention back to Wax. “Again, a curse can never be undone, only severed from the cursed, thus destroying it. I myself cannot do the breaking. Only you can. To break any curse, one must give something to the witch who placed the curse in the first place. A trade, so to speak.”

“The only thing that bitch is getting is a bullet in her skull and a one way ticket straight down to hell. And I’ll be burning her ass myself  _long_ before she gets down to those fiery pits.”

She ignored him, coming out from behind the counter and holding the bowl out for him to take. “You’ll have to drink this.”

“Me? Oh, hell no. I’m not the one cursed, lady. And I ain’t drinking shit.”

“It is  _part_ of the trade,” the witch emphasized, forcing Wax to take the bowl from her lest it should be dropped. Wax did, though whatever vile concoction it contained he would  _not_ be shoving down his throat. “This mixture contains aspects of our essence, so to speak, and it will allow you to connect with the one who cursed your partner, both physically and spiritually. It is nature’s own way of counteracting our abilities and our darkness to maintain balance.”

Whatever all that bullshit meant; however, he came to the grim realization that the longer he stood there, trying to make sense of all her witchy mumbo jumbo, the closer he came to losing Reece as each passing minute shed another layer off his life. “English please!”

“The person who will sacrifice on behalf of the one who is cursed must connect himself to the witch who placed the curse in order to break it.”

He concentrated, rolled all those words over in his head until they made  _some_ sort of sense. Hell, did it even really  _matter?_ He had no choice but to trust her now; it wasn’t like they could do any  _worse._ “It still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, especially the part where  _I’m_ the one doing the sacrificing.”

“It requires a blood sacrifice. Not from the victim but from one on the victim’s behalf.”

Witches and vampires and their creepy ass blood sacrifices.  _No, don’t you_ get  _it? Your blood for Reece’s life. Your_ life  _for Reece’s life. It’s a fair trade, it’s a_ more  _than fair trade._

But was this really what all their time together would come down to?

“Why are you helping us anyway? You witches don’t seem to be too scared of guns. Or knives. Or anything man-made now that I think about it.”

“Having no idea how your partner wronged the witch that cursed him, I have no choice but to help him. It eases my conscience, you see. Some of us are pettier than others. For all I know, your boy there could have simply looked at her wrong. Besides, it is not in our true nature to be judgmental and unforgiving. Nature, after all, only inflicts her cruelty as a necessary balance upon the world. Whatever evils we may unleash upon humans, some of us seek the right path to counter that darkness.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you’re one of those good ones, huh?”

And again, he had  _no_ choice. 

So it was best not to say what really happened. Then again, the sister of the witch who’d placed the curse on Reece had been doing some nasty ass things, and they’d only been doing their jobs when they had tracked her down, beheaded her and condemned her under holy ground. That was one way to kill a witch, the other was burning them alive, but that didn’t always take. They could find a new body long before that if they had the chance.

“Drink it or don’t. But if you don’t, there is no other course. If you do nothing, then your partner dies.”

_Not_ an option. 

Even still, it was was hard to shake the uneasiness he felt towards blood sacrifices,  _especially_ since he was about to perform one. “This blood sacrifice, it’s not some freaky ass vampiric thing, right? I thought you witches were keen on nature, trees and leaves and all that shit.”

Little did he know he’d be getting an entire lecture on witches today. If only Reece was coherent enough for this. “Blood isn’t just blood to our kind. Much as with vampires,” she said the word as if it were dirty, “it symbolizes life. Unlike those creatures, however, we view it as a form of bond, one of the strongest bonds this world has. You see, it isn’t just your blood that will save him but your will. Your  _need_ to save him, even at the expense of your own life, if need be.”

The ultimate sacrifice, right? “And what if this will, if  _my_ will isn’t strong enough to save him?”

“If you truly love him, then that’s all the sacrifice you need.”

_And I do. I guess that’s the only answer, the only thing that matters._

He drank, making sure to consume every drop. It tasted even more horrid than he could have imagined, but he would have drank five gallons of it if Reece needed it, if Reece needed him to be the hero for once, if Reece needed undeniable proof that Wax loved him.

“Wax, don’t…” Reece finally stirred, surfaced from the heat and pain to speak words that could never sway Wax in the slightest.

He moved, knelt down beside the couch and cupped Reece’s face in his hands, effectively hushing him. Reece’s eyes were tired and wet, his skin cold and clammy as his body switched mercilessly from fire to ice again. “Don’t you know by now that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you by my side?”

Wax slid the knife across his wrist before Reece could say another word, blood spilling quickly where he knelt. It dripped onto his jeans and stained them profusely within seconds, some stray drops touching Reece’s exposed skin as well, for good measure, though he managed to keep most of it in the bowl he’d set on the floor beside him. Reece seemed like he was holding his breath, like all of this was some nasty dream and yet Wax prayed that it wasn’t, he prayed that the timer set to take Reece away from him would stop, he prayed with everything in him that his blood would be enough to sate the curse.

Seconds ticked by with Wax pulling more and more away, losing sensation, losing sight of  _Reece,_ growing dizzy and then numb until some type of harsh, cold fabric was wrapped around his bleeding wrist and he was jolted back to reality. 

He glanced up, finding his partner in a much changed state: color was back in Reece’s cheeks and Wax couldn’t hear strained, laborious breathing and exhaustion wasn’t dragging him down never to rise back up again and something within Wax erupted, something not too far away from the greatest happiness he’d ever known.

“I didn’t say it required  _all_ of one’s blood,” an elder, female voice reprimanded, and the side of Wax that wanted to rip her apart for the turmoil she had put him through lost out to his overwhelming need to kiss her for not only saving his partner, but also allowing Wax to remain with him. 

Reece cried out and threw his arms around Wax, nearly knocking him flat back against the carpet. Wax chuckled and let Reece hold him tightly, as if it was completely natural and entirely something Reece always did, though he assumed all that pent-up frustration had only released Reece’s desperation to be loved. And Wax  _did_ love him, more than this whole world and anything in it, more than Reece could ever possibly know. 

Wax’s arms wrapped around him as well, coming to the satisfying realization that there was nothing better in this world than an armful of Reece.

**FIN**

 

 


End file.
